Preston Court Wedding Photographer: a planning guide

Preston Court is a working farm estate at Preston-next-Wingham, fifteen minutes east of Canterbury, that has been hosting weddings long enough to have worked out exactly how a day there runs. It’s the Kent venue photographers talk about most, for a simple reason: nothing on it was built to look like a wedding venue. The barn is a seventeenth-century threshing barn. The carousel is a real Victorian one. The peacocks are just peacocks.

A planning note before anything else: this is a guide to what the place gives you, not an account of a wedding I’ve shot there. I’d rather tell you that than imply otherwise.

The ceremony

You have three real choices.

Juliana’s Island is the one in the brochures. A small island in the front lake, reached by a Regency footbridge, with a pagoda for the ceremony and your guests on the lawn across the water. For a documentary photographer that distance is the interesting part: the couple on the island, the guests opposite, and the reactions on both sides happening at once. I’d want to be on the guests’ bank for most of it, because that’s where the faces are.

The Kentish Barn is the indoor option and the rain plan. Timber, five huge doors, a 1920s dance-hall organ as the backdrop, seating for around 120. With the doors open on a summer afternoon the light comes in low and sideways across the whole room, which is as good as barn light gets.

St Mildred’s Church is a thirteenth-century parish church on the estate itself, a short walk from the barn. It’s Church of England, so you’ll need a qualifying connection, but if you have one it’s the quietest version of the day: church, walk, barn, with no cars involved.

The light

The barn’s five doors face onto the Barnyard courtyard, and the venue itself says summer sun floods straight through them. Plan your drinks reception there and the room behind you will be lit for free.

The shot everyone wants is the carousel at sunset, and the venue knows it. It sits centre-stage in the Barnyard. I’d build ten unhurried minutes into the plan for it rather than hoping it happens, because it falls right when the party is getting going and nobody wants to leave.

The steam-engine graveyard beside the old showman’s wagon is the opposite: shaded, rusted, textured, good at any hour. It’s where I’d take you if the sun is too hard.

Timings

Ceremony time is yours to choose. The bar runs to roughly midnight, with limited late licences, so check the current cut-off when you book. Most days here run as a weekend, with glamping on site for up to around fifty guests, which changes the morning: people are already there, in dressing gowns, drinking coffee by the tents. That’s an hour of the day most venues can’t give you, and it’s worth paying a photographer to be there for it.

Practical notes for couples

• Rain. The barn is held ready and the team moves an island ceremony indoors. It’s a good rain plan, not a consolation prize.
• Confetti is permitted if it’s biodegradable. The footbridge is the natural place for it.
• Caterers. You choose from the venue’s accredited list, so the timings of the meal are well rehearsed. Ask them what time the speeches usually land.
• The Showman’s Wagon is set aside as the couple’s retreat. If you want a few minutes alone during the day, that’s where, and I’ll stay outside.
• Dogs are welcome. Peacocks are already there. Plan the two accordingly.
• Getting here. Court Lane, Preston, CT3 1DH. Adisham station is five miles, Canterbury West ten. Parking on site and cars can stay overnight.

If you’re comparing barn venues, here are four near Canterbury side by side.

From here

If you’re marrying at Preston Court, you’ve chosen a venue that rewards being left alone with it. That suits how I work. Pricing is public, and you can get in touch any time.